From: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@...>
Date: 2006-11-20T05:17:00+09:00
Subject: Re: Ruby vs Java vs c++

David Kastrup wrote:
> "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@cesmail.net> writes:
>
>   
> Chicken <URL:http://www.call-with-current-continuation.org/index.html>
>   
Yeah, I've got Chicken (and DrScheme and Guile and Gambit and a couple 
others).
>   
>> I haven't dug into Scheme implementation benchmark shootouts
>> recently, but for now, my money is on Gambit, mostly because of the
>> "Termite" package implementation of Erlang-like lightweight
>> processes.
>>     
>
> Well, it would be my guess that in typical applications continuations
> are more important, and it looks from
> <URL:http://www.iro.umontreal.ca/~gambit/doc/gambit-c.html#SEC133> as
> though they are implemented in a manner that basically incurs O(n^2)
> copying overhead where the n is the number of call-with-continuation
> calls not yet garbage-collected.
>
> I find Chicken's approach to continuations more appealing, but of
> course performance hinges on more than just that detail.
>
> Stalin is also said to be a good Scheme compiler.
>   
Sheesh ... at the risk of introducing a terribly inside joke, now I need 
to design a language called Shostakovich. :)

But seriously, to bring this back to Ruby, you've pointed out that the 
Scheme community, which worships continuations, has proved to the Ruby 
community that they *can* be implemented efficiently. So once again, I 
will step on my soapbox and beg with Matz and Koichi to keep 
continuations in Ruby >=1.9 if at all possible.

Sunday is the day they do the soapbox thing at Hyde Park in London, 
right? :)

-- 
M. Edward (Ed) Borasky, FBG, AB, PTA, PGS, MS, MNLP, NST, ACMC(P)
http://borasky-research.blogspot.com/

If God had meant for carrots to be eaten cooked, He would have given rabbits fire.